Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1928

When May was approaching the weather got better and it was announced on our bulletin board that a party of men with good conduct records would have the opportunity to go to Peking for a whole week. Well you may be sure I got on that list as quickly as possible. May 3rd we boarded the train at Chinwangtao on the Peking-Mukden Railway. First off we found we had been given a first class coach which was divided up into little roomettes having all conveniences including a button to push when we wanted a boy to bring more beer. The trip took all day and what an interesting experience that was crossing the farming section of North China. It all seemed very different from around Shanghai. Once we saw in the distance what looked like a bunch of sampans sailing round and round out there in the open fields but when we got closer we found it was a lot of sails fastened to a large round fram. It was a kind of horizontal windmill. In the little towns tht we went through we saw many women still with little bound feet. Everything was unusual to us in one way or another. When we arrived at our destination I hired a rickshaw boy to take me to the Peking Central Hotel. It was a small establishment but adequate. I would have loved to have gone to the Grand Hotel des Wagon-Lits but I knew if I did I wouldn't have much money left to see al the wonderful things in that most exotic city. I was completely free to go anywhere but if I wanted to see the special sights like the Winter Palace, the Forbidden City or the Ming Tombs all I had to do was go to the Marine non-commissioned officer's club in the American Legation and join with others to go on a scheduled tour.

One of the sergeants told me an amusing account of how things were with them in Peking. It seems that the rickshaw fraternity in the city have nicknames in Chinese of course for every man in the Peking Marine battalion. So if some morning there is a man missing at 8 o'clock muster the sergeant, or one of the man's buddies who knows his Chinese name, goes out and commandeers the first rickshaw that happens along. He looks straight at the coolie, waves his arm around in a circle and shouts, for example, "Hoop-ekack-where?" The coolie immediately picks up the shafts of the rickshaw and with his passenger trots off down the street. Every time he meets another rickshaw coolie he shouts in Chinese, "Hoopekack?". There is some shouted answer and neither one stops trotting. Eventually contact is made with an affirmative answer, the coolie turns down an alley off Hatamen Street and there on the ground in the back of a little joss house is Hoopekack still asleep. The case is solved. Private Murphy got very drunk last night and lay down to rest. Now he can expect to have at least five days extra duty in the mess hall as punishment for missing muster. At my hotel I was told that I could have my own rickshaw boy for the whole week for only six dollars. Of course I hired one on the spot and sure enough all week long no matter how early I got up, there was my rickshaw out front waiting for me and the coolie trotted all over the city with me for as late as I wanted to stay out. He got his meals from the street food venders and seemed to sleep in the rickshaw while waiting for me. It would take a separate book to tell all I saw during this week's stay, so refer to the many descriptions of the city at that time that are still available. I was fascinated by the very high grey-colored "Tartar Wall" around part of the city and the sight of camel caravans from the Gobi Desert coming in under its arched gateways. There were grim things too, like the prisoners being carried out to the execution places on high-wheeled barrows. A narrow board with Chinese characters on it sticking up from their coat collars told the nature of their crime. Bits of colored, porcelain-coated roof tiles lay around near the Temple of Heaven and other important buildings and I still have samples of them today, together with pieces of the Great Wall of China.